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Running Windows XP Pro on slow machines

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-Superman

Member
Joined
Jun 1, 2004
Location
next door to directron
Ive got a old P2 Gateway in the backroom that is back there for like use when my sister comes home for college or we have guests over or what not.

Well, Right now it is just slow as can be and im sure has spyware up the ying yang.

So basically what I am asking is whats some lil tweaks and tricks I can do to keep it running smooth as possible.

I had a P3 1.0 with 768 of pc133 and had XP on it and ran smooth as possible. The gateway in the back is a step behind I would say, like p2 400something with 196MBs of RAM.

I know what your all thinking , just upgrade. It doesnt get enough use to upgrade nor is it really worth it it, plus my dad...hahaha. thats enough said.

any tips or pointers would be helpful.
ill try and throw up all the specs later today after i get home from work.

thanks.
 
What operating system is now installed?

With that amount of ram, service tweaking with the help of www.blackviper.com will be useful... you can gain a considerable amount of physical resources back which will prove handy.

Installing spywareblaster and updating will prevent many spyware infections.

Other than that, there is no magic trick which will make XP run really well on that system... w2k would probably be a bit more friendly.
 
has a jacked up install of windows xp, by that i mean...

a windows 2000 with a windows xp install over it, with some network ncs or something on it ? not to mention in a girls dorm room for a year.

i could provide more info later today as the computer is down the hall and across from my parents room. really dont feel like wakeing anyone up over this :eh?:
 
but that involves me looking for my disc and that book ....

:: shrugs ::

Windows 2000 pick up a Windows XP network easily ?

I just noticed that I forgot to post this bit of info...

I had no plans on trying to fix it, i was gonna reformat it tomarrow after work and put XP on it.
 
With that amount of ram, service tweaking with the help of www.blackviper.com will be useful... you can gain a considerable amount of physical resources back which will prove handy.
Great tip.

I thought Win2000 was a whole lot better too, but I put XP Pro on my 600mhz laptop and after some tweakage it's running great. It does have some features that make it significantly more flexible than 2000. Remember to turn off all themes, including the themes service, and all visual effects. Also, go to start-->run and type in "gpedit.msc". There's a lot of cool stuff you can disable/enable in there, like user tracking, thumbnail caching, etc.
 
I used XP on my old Dell which was a P2 300MHz with 128MB of RAM. It ram surprisingly smoothly after I turned off all the graphics and such. Right click on My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Preformance > Settings and select "Adjust for best preformance". I kept ontop with spyware with Lavasoft's Ad-ware application.
 
I've run XP Pro on a Pentium 133 with 64 MB of RAM. Boot up times were crap, but once up it could run Prime95 and Apache Web Server with PHP and Perl with moderate speed. It will run, just boot up/install times are very long. Just turn off all unneeded stuff and it will be usable.
 
Indeed if a Windows XP operating system is installed on old hardware it will run, but slowly. Windows 2000 operating system will run smoother and faster on any hardware than Windows XP operating system.
 
-Superman said:
Windows 2000 pick up a Windows XP network easily ?
Yes. Windows XP however does not do it as well.

I run Windows 2000 Professional on all my machines and can detect any of them on the LAN. All Windows XP Home Edition machines on the LAN do not detect the Windows 2000 machines. With some modifications however the Windows XP machine may (haven't cared to try) be able to detect Windows 2000 machines.
 
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